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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

THE MUSLIM PREACHERS OF SEX SEGREGATION

The UK Telegraph wrote about the imams at the British university who were enforcing and advocating apartheid between the sexes:

A young man called Ishmael, with a wispy black beard and a slight blemish in one eye, is telling me why women should be covered up and kept apart.

“If I had two sweets – one wrapped and one unwrapped – and threw them in a bin, which one would you pick out and eat?” He grins, the amateur philosopher pleased with his analogy, and breaks off to shake the hand of a young man walking past the makeshift London Metropolitan University Islamic Society stall set up in the student canteen. Ishmael, who says he is a former head of the society (something the current president later denies) appears to know a lot of the students passing through.

“Women are man’s great temptation,” he turns back to face me. “They should be covered up.”

This reminds me of an imam in Australia who called women wearing little clothing/no burkas "uncovered meat". If that's what such a disgrace thinks, does he also despise God for creating women? I'd think he does, and his statements are an insult to God.

Later that evening, in the windowless lecture room GC1-08, which juts out silver and angular over north London’s Holloway Road, the members of the Islamic Society file in. Through a side door come the men, occupying the seats at the front. Through another door come the women, sitting as far back as possible. There are no signs in place, and the society insists it has no policy of segregation, and yet on more than one occasion, a female late arrival is directed to sit at the back.

The talk is called “The Effects of Sins” by an external lecturer called Ustadh Abu Ibrahim. He appears to be no firebrand, espousing moderate views that wouldn’t sound out of place in any mosque, church or temple. At the end, he stresses that the women at the back should be allowed to ask questions. “You have to be fair to the sisters,” he tells his audience.

But are they being fair? As the following tells, despite the issue being raised earlier:

Spring term 2014 was supposed to bring an end to gender segregation at British universities. In December, the Prime Minister himself intervened over the issue, emphasising through a spokesman that he wanted it banned even where men and women voluntarily separate themselves (although not in places of worship). [...]

Yet, while hands wring over the latest furore, inside Britain’s universities nothing seems to have changed. In Islamic societies dominated by more traditional elements, segregated seating – be it enforced, implicit or otherwise – continues unchallenged. Hard-line speakers, who espouse the sorts of views I heard from Ishmael in the canteen, are meanwhile still being invited on a weekly basis.

Dear dear dear. I had a bad feeling this would be the result, which is practically nothing at all. Again, the UK goes jelly-spined and fails to make any significant halt to discriminatory practices at their universities, or other public outfits.